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210130b

Saturday 30.01.2021

Audience with participants in the meeting promoted by the National Catechetical Office of the
Italian Episcopal Conference

This morning, the Holy Father Francis received in audience the participants in the meeting promoted by the
national Catechetical Office of the Italian Episcopal Conference.

The following is the Pope’s address to those present:

Address of the Holy Father

Dear brothers and sisters,

I welcome you, and I thank Cardinal Bassetti for his kind words. He has regained his strength, thank you! I greet
the secretary general, Bishop Russo, and all of you who support the commitment of the Italian Church in the field
of catechesis. I am happy to share with you the memory of the 60th anniversary of the birth of the National
Catechetical Office. Established even before the Episcopal Conference took shape, it was an indispensable
instrument for catechetical renewal after the Second Vatican Council. This anniversary is a valuable occasion for
remembering, giving thanks for the gifts received and renewing the spirit of proclamation. To this end, I would
like to share three points that I hope will help you in your work over the next few years.

The first: catechesis and kerygma. Catechesis is the echo of the Word of God. In the transmission of the faith,
Scripture - as the Basic Document recalls - is “the Book; not a subsidy, even if it were the first” (CEI, Il
rinnovamento della catechesi, n. 107). Catechesis is therefore the “long wave” of the Word of God, to transmit
the joy of the Gospel in life. Thanks to the narration of catechesis, Sacred Scripture becomes the “environment”
in which we feel part of the same salvation history, encountering the first witnesses of faith. Catechesis is taking
others by the hand and accompanying them in this history. It inspires up a journey, in which each person finds
his or her own rhythm, because Christian life does not even out or standardise, but rather enhances the
uniqueness of each child of God. Catechesis is also a mystagogical journey, which advances in constant
dialogue with the liturgy, an environment in which symbols shine forth that, without imposing themselves, speak
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to life and mark it with the imprint of grace.

The heart of the mystery is the kerygma, and the kerygma is a person: Jesus Christ. Catechesis is a special
space for fostering a personal encounter with Him. Therefore it must be interwoven with personal relationships.
There is no true catechesis without the testimony of men and women in flesh and blood. Who among us does
not remember at least one of his catechists? I do: I remember the nun who prepared me for my First
Communion and was so good to me. They are the first protagonists of catechesis, messengers of the Gospel,
often lay people, who commit themselves with generosity to share the beauty of having met Jesus. “Who are
catechists? They are people who keep the memory of God alive; they keep it alive in themselves” - they are
“memorialists” of salvation history - “and they are able to revive it in others. …. A catechist is a Christian who
puts this remembrance at the service of proclamation, not to seem important, not to talk about himself or herself,
but to talk about God, about His love and fidelity” (Homily for the “Day for Catechists” during the Year of Faith,
29 September 2013).

In order to do this, it is good to remember that “the kerygma calls for stressing those elements which are most
needed today: it has to express God’s saving love which precedes any moral and religious obligation on our
part; it should not impose the truth but appeal to freedom, as Jesus did; it should be marked by joy,
encouragement, liveliness and a harmonious balance which will not reduce preaching to a few doctrines which
are at times more philosophical than evangelical. All this demands on the part of the evangeliser certain attitudes
which foster openness to the message: approachability, readiness for dialogue, patience, a warmth and
welcome which is non-judgmental” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 165). Jesus had this. It is the entire
geography of humanity that the kerygma, the infallible compass of faith, helps to explore.

And on this point - the catechist - I return to something that should also be said to parents, to grandparents: the
faith should be transmitted “in dialect”. A catechist who does not know how to explain in the “dialect” of young
people, of children, of those who... But by dialect I am not referring to linguistic ones, in which Italy is so rich, no;
I refer to the dialect of closeness, to the dialect that can be understood, to the dialect of intimacy. I am so
touched by that passage from Maccabees, of the seven brothers (2 Mac 7). On two or three occasions it says
that the mother supported them by speaking to them in dialect [“in the language of the fathers”]. It is important:
the true faith must be transmitted in dialect. Catechists must learn to transmit it in dialect, that is, that language
that comes from the heart, that is inherent, that is the most familiar, the closest to everyone. If there is no dialect,
the faith is not passed on fully or well.

The second point: catechesis and the future. Last year was the 50th anniversary of the document Il
rinnovamento della catechesi (“The renewal of catechesis"), with which the Italian Episcopal Conference
acknowledged the indications of the Council. In this regard, I reiterate the words of Saint Paul VI, addressed to
the first General Assembly of the CEI after Vatican II: “We must look to the Council with gratitude to God and
with confidence for the future of the Church; it will be the great catechism of the new times” (23 June 1966).
Returning to the theme, on the occasion of the first International Catechetical Congress, he added: “It is a task
that is constantly being reborn and constantly renewed for catechesis to understand these problems that arise
from the heart of man, in order to lead them back to their hidden source: the gift of love that creates and saves”
(25 September 1971). Therefore, catechesis inspired by the Council is continually listening to the heart of man,
always with an attentive ear, always seeking to renew itself.

This is magisterium: the Council is the magisterium of the Church. Either you are with the Church and therefore
you follow the Council, and if you do not follow the Council or you interpret it in your own way, as you wish, you
are not with the Church. We must be demanding and strict on this point. The Council should not be negotiated in
order to have more of these... No, the Council is as it is. And this problem that we are experiencing, of selectivity
with respect to the Council, has been repeated throughout history with other Councils. It makes me think of a
group of bishops who, after Vatican I, left, a group of lay people, groups, to continue the “true doctrine” that was
not that of Vatican I: “We are the true Catholics”. Today they ordain women. The strictest attitude, to guard the
faith without the Magisterium of the Church, leads you to ruin. Please, no concessions to those who try to
present a catechesis that does not agree with the Magisterium of the Church.
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Just as in the post-Council period the Italian Church was ready and able to embrace the signs and sensibilities
of the times, so too today she is called to offer a renewed catechesis that inspires every area of pastoral care:
charity, liturgy, family, culture, social life, economics... From the root of the Word of God, through the trunk of
pastoral wisdom, fruitful approaches to the various aspects of life flourish. Catechesis is thus an extraordinary
adventure: as the “vanguard of the Church” it has the task of reading the signs of the times and accepting
present and future challenges. We must not be afraid to speak the language of the women and men of today. To
speak a language that is outside the Church, yes, we must be afraid of that. [But] we must not be afraid to speak
the language of the people. We must not be afraid to listen to their questions, whatever they may be, to their
unresolved issues, to listen to their frailties, their uncertainties: let us not be afraid of that. We must not be afraid
to develop new tools: in the seventies the Catechism of the Italian Church was original and appreciated; today's
times also require intelligence and courage to develop updated tools, which transmit to people today the
richness and joy of the kerygma, and the richness and joy of belonging to the Church.

Third point: catechesis and community. In this year marked by the isolation and sense of loneliness caused by
the pandemic, we have often reflected on the sense of belonging that underlies a community. The virus has
burrowed into the living fabric of our territories, especially our existential ones, feeding fears, suspicions, mistrust
and uncertainty. It has undermined established practices and habits and thus provokes us to rethink our
community. We have realised, in fact, that we cannot get by alone, and that the only way to come out of crises
better is to come out of them together - no one is saved alone, we come out of it together - re-embracing with
more conviction the community in which we live. Because the community is not an agglomeration of individuals,
but the family into which we integrate, the place where we take care of each other, the young of the elderly and
the elderly of the young, we of today of those who will come tomorrow. It is only by rediscovering a sense of
community that each person will be able to find his or her dignity to the full.

Catechesis and proclamation cannot but place this community dimension at the centre. This is not the time for
elitist strategies. The great community: what is the great community? The holy faithful people of God. It is not
possible to advance outside the holy faithful people of God, who - as the Council says - are infallible in
credendo. Always with the holy people of God. Instead, seeking elitist affiliations distances you from the people
of God, perhaps with sophisticated formulas, but you lose that belonging to the Church, which is the holy faithful
people of God.

This is the time to be the artisans of open communities that know how to value the talents of each person. It is a
time for free and disinterested missionary communities, which do not seek prominence and advantage, but
rather walk the paths of the people of our time, stooping to tend to those on the margins. It is a time for
communities that look disappointed young people in the eye, that welcome strangers and give hope to the
disheartened. It is a time for communities that fearlessly engage in dialogue with those with different ideas. It is a
time for communities that, like the Good Samaritan, know how to approach those wounded by life, to bind their
wounds with compassion. Do not forget this word: compassion. How many times in the Gospel does it say of
Jesus: “And he had compassion”, “he had compassion”? As I said at the ecclesial conference in Florence, I want
a Church “ever closer to the abandoned, the forgotten, the imperfect. I would like a glad Church with a mother’s
face, that understands, accompanies, caresses”. What I referred to then as Christian humanism also applies to
catechesis: it “radically affirms the dignity of every person as a Child of God, it establishes among all human
beings a fundamental fraternity, teaches one to understand work, to inhabit creation as a common home, to
furnish reasons for optimism and humour, even in the middle of a life many times more difficult” (Address at the
Fifth National Conference of the Italian Church, Florence, 10 November 2015).

I mentioned the Florence Convention. Five years on, the Italian Church must return to the Florence Convention,
and must begin a national Synod process, community by community, diocese by diocese: this process too will
be a form of catechesis. In the Florence Convention there is precisely the intuition of the road to be taken in this
Synod. Now, set out on it again: it is time. And start walking.

Dear brothers and sisters, I thank you for what you are doing. I invite you to continue to pray and to think
creatively about a catechesis centred on the kerygma, which looks to the future of our communities, so that they
may be ever more rooted in the Gospel, as fraternal and inclusive communities. I bless you, I accompany you.
And you, please, pray for me, I need it. Thank you!
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